Mykel Refuses to Act His Age (MRR 339)

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 339
August 2011

by Mykel Board

aka  Mykel refuses to act his age.

“To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.” – Herman Melville

 

“Pffffammmda!” he says.

“Tell me later,” I reply, “after I come.”

I grab the back of his head, pressing the mohawk against the smooth sides of his skull. Thrusting forward, I push deeper into his mouth. He has one hand on each of my glutes. I reach behind me to adjust him.

“Stick a finger up my asshole,” I tell him. “Press in.. as far as you can go... like you're digging out a sesame seed... you may BE digging out a sesame seed... Yes! Yes! That's it!”

I wish I could describe the semenal dribble down his chin, but as I work through my last decade of life, I just manage to produce a Nik-L-Nip. Gone before either of us knows it.

My tippling punk releases me and I squeeze out another drop.

“Now,” I say, stuffing in and zipping up. “What were you trying to say?”

“Did you hear the new Social Distortion album?” he asks.

“No,” I tell him. “Should I?”

“It sucks,” he says. “They've gone... I donno... bad.” 

I like the guy. Smart, attractive, skin the color of a Sam Adams bottle. Oh yeah! But an 18-year old punk with a mohawk may not be the best judge of music. So I check the real experts-- the guys who write the reviews on Amazon.com.

From Amazon 1: I don't think that there was Social Distortion album that I didn't like until this one. It just doesn't sound like them. Yes, I agree that bands, like people evolve and change, but that doesn't always mean it's a good thing.

From Amazon 2: Wow, this record is amazing....amazing in its mediocrity. Is this Social D, or is this the new Goo Goo Dolls album? Is Mike Ness trying to be the next John Mellencamp? Was this record pushed out to fulfill a contractual obligation? Was it dumbed down to get a single played on lamestream radio? Did aliens come down and abduct the band and replace them with Social D. clones?

The songs are pedestrian, the band is uninspired, the guitar solos are weak, the lyrics are every cliché pulled from the last four albums, and the vox are overproduced and sanitized. Where's that punch in the mouth I expect from a Social D. song?

Looks like the band tried something new. That's how fans are, right? Keep remaking that first album. If you don't, you're slowing down... changing... getting old... And getting old is getting bad, right?

My Mohawked pal (I call him Punky Brewster) shakes his head.

“You're old, Mykel,” he says. “But I'm here giving you a blow job because I respect what you're doing. You've never made an Artless At The Jazz Lounge album. You've stayed punk for 40 years!

I smile.

FLASH AHEAD: It's gonna be a great show. My friends, Cojoba, are opening. Then comes Death First, a band I don't know. Then, MDC yes.. THAT MDC: Millions of Dead Cops, Millions of Damn Christians, Multi-Death Corporation, My Dog Charlie. THAT one. Then the (British) Sub-Humans. Wow!

When Punky and I get to the show, the place is already packed. The main stage isn't open yet, so we crowd into the bar downstairs. I buy a beer and slip it to Punky. He sucks on it greedily. That's my boy!

The show is masterful. Cojoba and Death First wow the crowd... set 'em pogoing! (I shit you not.) Both bands have girl singers. Cojoba is Hispanic enough to cause one of those hour-plus erections that the commercials warn you about.

Death First are plain killer in the best sense of the word. Though few people know their songs, the crowd loves 'em.

And speaking of the crowd, I'm amazed and delighted by it. Mixed ages (I'm not even the oldest!) and genders. After the first two bands, kids who barely saw last century sing along with the Sub-humans and MDC. Yeah! These kids know the words!

No, the bands don't jump around like they used to. They look older. They ARE older. They probably dribble semen instead of spray it into the back of the throat. But it still is quality semen.

FLASH AHEAD TO CALIFORNIA: I'm with Rebecca (name changed because she'd want it that way). I've known her since 1982... had a crush on her the whole time... didn't come to anything though. She's since gotten married, dropped a couple puppies, started a consulting business. We used to have very similar musical tastes. She, like me, is friends with Dave, the MDC singer.

“Hey, I saw MDC and the Sub-humans in New York,” I tell her. 

“Really?” she says, “They're doing one of those stupid reunion shows?”

I nod.

“But it wasn't stupid,” I say. “They were really punkrock. And there were these kids... same age as yours... they knew all the songs.”

She shakes her head. “Don't they feel stuck? Doing the same songs for 30 years? Don't they know what people think of them? Another bunch of old farts, getting together to live on their past. It's sad. It must be a kind of hell.”

FLASH FURTHER AHEAD: When I get back to New York, I hit the computer. Right to Google, god of everything that's true in the world. I enter, “boring old bands reuniting and touring” and in 0.34 seconds I get “About 3,280,000 results.” I don't look at any of them.

The May issue of MRR was filled with people lamenting “reunion bands.” In California, I saw leaflets urging a boycott of Steve Ignorant's tour doing Crass songs. Dead bands should stay dead is the call.

And in the June MRR issue, a columnist who usually plays contrarian, not only jumps full force on the reunion band bashing bandwagon, but crawls to the front to beat the dead horse dragging the thing. Old people should just die, he says.

Well. Sin Arte, (the Mexican version of ARTLESS, with me singing), is reuniting for one show in Agua Prieta in August. Along with us will be La Merma and Solución Mortal-- two of the most hardcore Mexican bands from the 80s. You wanna make somethin' of it?

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. If a band who loves playing tours when they're past 50, they're a sad bunch of old farts living in the past. When they try something new, they're pedestrian and uninspired. Why not just take a job selling insurance? Better yet, kill yourself... make it spectacular.

Listen kids, youth is NOT an asset. Just because your face sags a bit, your hair falls out, you dribble instead of shoot, you are no less inspired or creative. Your songs have no less value in 2011 than they did in 1981. Go ahead, complain because someone is old. I hope that's a condition you never face.

Listen adults, maturity is NOT an asset. Giving up a dream is not progress. Being realistic is defeat. Why should I settle for real life when I can live the fantasy? I've been doing it for a long time and while I don't have money or property... I LOVE my life. You? Get married or an MBA or something. See how much you love YOUR life. You can pick your maturity out of my asshole like a sesame seed... then eat it.

It may take me slightly longer to fill that martini glass with viscous white semen from my aged balls. But fill it I will. Then I'll drink a spermata toast to every creaky old guy or gal... waddling on stage... temporarily ditching the walker for a guitar... inhaling oxygen through a tube attached to a tank on wheels... whaling out those last few chords before coughing up blood... I'll be singing along. I already know the words.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links, extra endnotes and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Conflict of interest dept: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will vote on the constitutionality of the health care reform law. He has already profited from opposition to that law. His wife has taken nearly $700,000 from health care opponents and now openly advertises herself as a crack lobbyist with the "experience and connections" to overturn the law of the land.

      Seventy-five congressional representatives signed a letter to Justice Thomas calling on him to recuse himself from deliberations related to health care. I'm sure he'll take himself right out of the case. Yeah, right. And the world will end on May 21.

 

-->And why does Al Qaeda hate us? They're jealous of our freedom! dept: One out of every 100 Americans is in jail. One out of 39 are in jail, paroled or somehow in the criminal injustice system. More Negroes are in jail than were slaves before the Civil War.

     What do you mean FREEDOM, whiteboy?

-->And why do the conservatives hate Obama? dept: The ACLU reports that Abdullah al-Kidd was arrested and never charged with a crime He was never asked to testify. But he spent 16 days in harsh detention, sometimes held naked and shackled hand-and-foot. The ACLU fought the case in the lower courts, and the court agreed with them. The Obama Administration is fighting that decision.

-->Speaking of Obama dept: AARP reports that Obama has named one “entertainer” to join his Council for Community Solutions. That's a group that's supposed to help reduce youth unemployment and help poor people in general. Of course, our pal Barak chose someone from the lower ranks of society, who really understands the problems of the poor. Russel Simmons... yeah right. Would you believe Jon Bon Jovi?

-->Just discovered dept: BARRACK in Australian English means "to cheer for a team or player." They don't use root in that context, because root means "to fuck" in Australian English. Interesting, because a similar word BARACK in American English, means BIG DISAPPOINTMENT.

-->Catch THE OTHER GUY dept: Car & Travel Magazine reports that 52% of Americans feel "less safe" on the road than they did a year ago. It also reveals:

    66% of poll-answerers report talking on their cellphone while driving
   24% say they were texting or e-mailing while driving
   25% say they drove when they were so tired they had a hard time keeping their eyes open.
   Despite this, 66% support having more police on the road to catch traffic violators.
   Huh?

 

-->Modify THAT baby! dept: In spite of strong opposition from the organic community, the USDA approved the unrestricted cultivation of genetically engineered alfalfa. The approval included no requirements to prevent contamination of organic and non-GE crops. Genetically engineered alfalfa does not have to be labeled so that consumers can identify it.

-->But not this one dept: Among the dozens of bills awaiting Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's action are several that didn't pass until the final hours of the legislative session. Most of these provoked controversy or needed last-minute fixes to get through. They include Senate Bill 1307, which bans human-animal hybrids. It won narrow approval in both chambers of the legislature. Opponents ridiculed its attempt to legislate actions that they say have no foundation in reality, with Democrats cracking jokes about minotaurs and mermaids.

-->Let's go back to the past dept: In 1949, the United Nations launched a universal campaign for the decriminalization of prostitution. It failed. Now, I'm afraid, the foot is in the other mouth.

-->Further back in the past dept: According to recent historical evidence, Empress Wu Hou of the Chinese Tang dynasty (683-705) insisted that all visiting dignitaries perform oral sex on her as a way of paying homage.
   Without knowing it, I've been copying the Empress for the last 50 years. Must be royalty in the blood

-->The Tea Party says China will beat us dept: No, it's not because of the oral sex. Instead, the tea party is running TV ads on how the Chinese are going to take over because of high US corporate taxes. They forgot, however, to connect their propaganda to the facts. Jim Hightower reports that in the 1950s, 30 percent of the US tax revenues came from corporations. In the 2010s that number is 6.6 percent. General Electric notoriously paid NO TAXES last year. Now, what's China going to do about that when they take over?

-end-

Mykel's homepage is here.

Mykel Divides it Right (MRR 338)

If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.     

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 338
July 2011

by Mykel Board

aka  Mykel learns how to divide the world.

“In his Petersburg world, all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with one wife whom he has lawfully married, that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self controlled and strong: that one ought to bring up one’s children, earn one’s bread, and pay one’s debts: and various similar absurdities. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class, the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else” -- Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina

Maybe it’s a general semen buildup. Maybe it’s my prostate-- swelling a millimeter with each passing decade. In 2011, I find that the only way I can keep those final piss drops from oozing generously down my pants leg is by reaching back with the middle finger... right between my balls... pressing on the prostate ...slowly squeezing forward, like grinding the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube. I do that. Those last drops dribble out. PLOP PLOP PLOP. Into the toilet. No panty stains for me. This pipe-cleaning piss follows my daily semen spill, so I squeeze twice to make sure I get the last blocked drops. 

It was a pleasant masturbation... at TEEN SNOW, the best pornsite on the internet. Something new every day... guys who look as good as the girls... that’s pretty fuckin’ good. With just enough sick stuff to keep a multi-interested high riser like me, multi-interested. The only thing wrong is the name: TEEN SNOW?? What the fuck does that mean? Even Urban Dictionary doesn’t have a listing for TEEN SNOW.

FLASH AHEAD: I type this at Kennedy Airport while waiting for a flight to San Francisco. The airport: a place I like even less than an Apple store and only slightly more than a hospital or morgue. I sit by the food concessions near the departure gate. The smell of French fries forces itself into my nose like The Top forces one of those ball gags into the mouth of The Bottom in an S&M movie.

An obnoxious blonde 2 tables down shouts into her iPhone^TM You’re just gonna die... I mean did you see...

My computer is plugged into a bank of iPads^TM that offer buttons to press for food brought right to your table. Wow, just like a real restaurant!

For someone who travels as much as I do, you’d think I’d hate airports less than I do. You’d be wrong. Of course I hate SECURITY most, but there’s more. I hate the whole sterile atmosphere. The screaming babies. The smell of French Fries. The Americans... the kind you don’t see in New York: fat... screaming little bundles-of-joy in tow... soda-drinking, Whopper-eating... blond... Americans. White trash without the good food. Rednecks without the moonshine. Tourists without the innocence. At least a hundred people are within my vision. Not one of them is smiling.

I’ve been more or less nauseous since this morning. Is it the egg salad I had for breakfast? No, it started before that. It must be the tension. Dad is in bad shape. Every time I see him, I think it can’t get any worse. It gets worse.

Since he’s been in hospice (that’s a blog), he’s gone downhill fast. Last time I saw him, he weighed less than 100 lbs... was on oxygen... his voice so faint I couldn’t understand him.

“I have a trip planned for next week,” I tell the hospice nurse. “Should I cancel it?”

“If it were my father, I would,” she says.

“You never know,” says my sister. “We’ve got to play it by ear... see what happens.”

I guess she’s right, but I’m so nervous I shut off my phone... dreading THAT text or THAT voicemail. My stomach tense... my blood pressure in the danger zone... I can’t concentrate. In a way, it’s a good time to get away. In another way, it bodes disaster.

Still, Passover calls... I’ve got family and friends... and somewhat of a life... it’s taking all my concentration... except... over there, by the Supersize Me sign... I love the way her jeans curve gently over her buttocks... bulging directly back, like a full parenthesis... must be Hispanic. What other girls have asses like that? Ah, a relief... a distraction. She sits down. It’s over.

The guy next to me must’ve paid his $9.95 for Internet access. He’s reading the news on the iPad^TM. I look over his shoulder.

NYTIMES.COM  says it’s still up in the air whether California can prohibit the sales of video games to minors. Strange coalitions form on both sides. Rightwing and leftwing libertarians on one side. The religious right and leftwing authoritarian mommies on the other. I’m betting on the badguys. They usually win. (Actually I was wrong here. Since this column was printed, the Supreme Court ruled CORRECTLY!! Overturning the California law.)

It reminds me of a YouTube video I saw a few nights ago. I can’t figure out who the host is. Maybe he works for Fox News. In any case, he wears a tie and sits in front of one of those blue screens they use to show TV within TV. The studio is cheap-looking. On the bluescreen is a pair of Congressmen. He’s interviewing them about the U.S. war in Libya. They’re opposed to it.

They’re not talking about the morality of the war itself, but about how The President just went ahead and did it. The Constitution says only Congress has the power to declare war. The constitution hasn’t been important for the past several years... maybe more.

That would be mildly interesting. What turns it from mild to spicy is the two people being interviewed: Ron Paul, the most conservative Congressman-- from the hated state of Arizona... and Dennis Kucinich, the most left Congressman... and a guy who is right about almost as much as I am. What the fuck?

Here they are, both agreeing that Obama has usurped his power, declared war wrongly, and created an imperial presidency. Wow!

A great man (me) once wrote a song called CRASSDRIVER. It was about how the left and right were the same. But in that song, I was saying they were both full of shit. Now, they’re both RIGHT!

And then, take Tolstoy... please!

Actually, it’s not Tolstoy, but just a character in Anna Karenina. For him, lower classes are conservative, Christian, monogamous, and boring. Then there’s the rest of us.

In England 2011, the riots against the government are not corporate financed tea parties: conservative, Christian and boring. They’re anarchists, socialists... a bunch of them poor people. The government cuts in France aren’t being welcomed by the French equivalent of the Koch brothers. They’re being fought by the French equivalent of that construction guy who calls out Hey babe... anybody tell you you’ve got nice tits?

Even punk rock, that musical style that began in America as a middle-class reaction to White overblown rock music and Negro (and gay) disco. When it crossed the ocean, poor people took it over. When it came back, it turned from Skrewdriver to The Dead Kennedys.

What the fuck? Things aren’t like they should be. Who’s conservative? Who’s liberal? Who’s a lefty? Is punkrock rightwing or leftwing? What does that mean anyway? Fuck if I...

WAIT A MINUTE!! I GOT IT!! It’s not TEEN SNOW at all! It’s TEENS NOW! TEEN SNOW-dot-fuckin’ com is TEENS NOW-dot-fuckin’ com. How did I miss that?

I just divided it in the wrong place. I split the words where the words shouldn’t have been split. As usual, pornography answers life’s most profound questions.

It’s not a question of left or right, punk or non-punk, dead Dad or live Dad. I’ve been dividing the world where the world shouldn’t have been divided.

Kucinich-Paul makes perfect sense. Both politicians believe the U.S. should avoid doing harm in the world. Both believe that money spent killing people in other countries is not money well spent. Kucinich believes that money should be spent on people who need it. Paul believes that money should be returned to the people who had it before the government took it. THAT’S the dividing line. The idea of left and right is irrelevant.

Skrewdriver was just as punk as Crass. Working-class Sham 69 was no punker than middle-class Ramones. GG Allin is punk. Green Day is punk. Fast music and a fuck-you attitude... that’s the line. It’s not politics, popularity or personality. If you inspire people to throw themselves at one another, sing along, say fuck you to someone with power. It’s punk. Anarcho, pop, post, crusty... they don’t mean shit. You're dividing things in the wrong places.

Dad may indeed kick the bucket while I’m here in California. He may go before this plane touches ground. I could land, call Cousin Shirley from the airport and hear her teary voice on the other end. I have no control. Go or not will not change the end. People die. When they die, we do things (cry, go to funerals, cemeteries, figure out what debts to skip out on, where to go from here). Life and death is what happens. One is the end of the other. There’s no dividing at all.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (mykelsblog.blogspot.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

--> I hate Obama so I’m safe from hell dept: In Greenville South Carolina, Rev. Jay Scott Newman distributed a letter to his congregation. The letter told them that if they voted for Obama or any other “pro-abortion” politician, they “place themselves outside the full communion of Christ’s Church... Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”

--> Recession? What recession? dept: The LA Times reports that the top executives of America’s 4 largest for-profit insurance companies got nearly $200 million last year. The insurance companies also forced double-digit premium hikes on their customers.

-->  Civil War redux dept: Tennessee Representative Zach Wamp said that states need to secede from the union if the Federal government continues in its current path. Says he, “I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government.” 
        I say, YEAH! America is way too big anyway. How ‘bout fifty countries? Then those guys can get what they deserve. Here, dividing lines are clear. Just look at a map.

-->  You want Palin with that? dept: Jim Hightower reports on the last week before the 2010 elections. Workers in a McDonald’s outlet in Canton, Ohio found instructions from their boss on how to vote.

    In a pamphlet with the McDonald’s logo, workers read, “If the right people are elected, we will continue with raises and benefits at or above the current levels. If others are elected, we will not.”
    Just in case the workers didn’t get it, the McDonald’s owner listed the Republican nominees for Governor, Senate and Congress, designating them as “the right people.”

-->  You want truth with that? dept: Republican ad-man Ben Mathis got famous actor Morgan Freeman to do an ad attacking North Carolina’s Democrats. Only he didn’t. Mathis hired a voice double to make the ad, copying Freeman’s voice.
    Says Mathis, “we, of course, never say that they are the actual celebrities, but voters recognize their voice and trust it.”

-->  I wonder if he got hard labor dept: Kyle sent me a clipping about a Swedish man who was sentenced to more than 2½ years in prison for stealing the Auschwitz ARBEIT MACHT FREI (Work Makes You Free) sign that was over the entrance to the concentration camp.

-->  One small victory dept: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Oregon law which criminalized giving or selling to minors “material containing descriptions or depictions of sexual activity.” This would have included material from sex eduction books, or Maximum RocknRoll when it runs my columns.

-->  Further on the censorship front dept: The Bible Literacy Project is a program for pushing bible-studies in public schools. It's gotten in trouble with Christian fundamentalists. Why? The group published a textbook called The Bible and It’s Influence using a picture where... gasp... Adam and Eve were NAKED! Fundamentalists complained. The textbook’s authors will soon make necessary changes. Besides, everybody knows that Adam and Eve were born wearing JESUS IS MY COACH t-shirts, right?

-->  Very End Endnote Dept: With nearly perfect timing, Dad died 2 days after my return to New York. He let me enjoy my time in California... both with my family and friends including early MRR founders and supporters: Ruth Schwartz, Jeff Bale, and Jello Biafra. I also hung with current MRR editrix Mariam, and a bunch of shitworkers. Though I missed a few important people (Adrienne and Martin among others) it was a great trip. I’m glad Dad let me enjoy it. Thanks Dad.

-end-

Mykel's homepage is here